Discuss how social or cultural factors affect one cognitive
process.
Cultural and methodological considerations in cross-cultural research on
memory

Wang & Ross (2007)

Culture is both a 1)system and 2)a process.


System: values, schemas, models, artifacts
Process: rituals, daily routines, and practices
 When
cross-cultural research is done with
Westerners & non-Westerners they often use
lab experiments (ie, recall of unrelated words).
The Westerners tend to do better.
 Perhaps this is so because many non-Westerners see these
tasks as meaningless.

Discuss how social or cultural factors affect one cognitive
process.
Cultural & social demands determine memory
Bartlett (1932): claims that
cultural & social demands can
explain the extraordinary
ability of Swazi herdsmen to
recall individual
characteristics of their cattle.
Misty & Rogoff (1994): argue
that culture & memory are
enmeshed skills.
Remembering is an activity,
which is determined by the
demands of the social and
cultural context in which it
takes place. Remembering
may be a means of
achieving an important
social or cultural goal.
Discuss how social or cultural factors affect one cognitive
process.

Look at Cole & Scribner (1974)
 What
are the independent and dependent variables?
 Evaluate the study. What are some potential issues with
the experiment?
 The
extent to which it is culture or schooling (or both) that
influenced memory and categorziation in the study is not
entirely clear. The experimental method was used and it can
help establish a cause-effect relationship, but since the
independent variable was culture (or schooling) it may be
difficult to say anything definite about cause-effect
relationships.
Discuss how social or cultural factors affect one cognitive
process.
Culture and Memory Summing up

The implication of many
cross-cultural memory
studies is that, although
the ability to remember
is universal (hardware),
specific forms of
remembering (software)
are not universal, but
rather context-bound.

A methodological
problem exists as most
memory research is
conducted in cultures
with formal schooling
systems. This makes it
difficult to generalize
findings to cultures with
no formal schooling.
Discuss how social or cultural factors affect one cognitive
process.
Other memory studies with culture

Rogoff & Waddel (1982)